[DRAFT] A House Divided

[Millenhaal]

So I had this idea and got really excited. I felt like I had to write it as soon as I got the idea.


[Desc] The royal family is the strength of their country; the face of all that it stands for, however @@NAME@@'s monarchy is not functioning smoothly with all of the contentious feuds within the royal family. Private gardens have been reduced to rubble and compost, and hats have been all the rage with the gamut of shaved heads by vengeful nobles. Most importantly, everybody, even those not in the family, has been too distracted by the fighting to do their jobs. You've met with the royal family and other people to discuss the problem.

[Validity] Monarchy, doesn't have high niceness

[Option 1] "He started it!" yells a frazzled princess, daring to wear an allegedly ugly dress that has been the source of some contention. "Everybody in the family is mean except me! I can't go one day in this palace without being harassed by those who are supposed to support me! The only solution to this den full of braggarts is to forcefully isolate every family member from one another, then we can live in peace! Emphasis on forcefully! Except at the royal ball, of course!" Several family members are readying razors for action in the near future.

[Fallout 1] royal family members fear making eye contact with their spouses to avoid being arrested by the royal niceness police

[Option 2] "Nobody ever said that you people needed to live together..." says one of the more distant relatives of the family who founded his own branch of the dynasty, and is now the Duke of the Southwest Hills. "I hated my siblings, they were cruel and I wanted nothing more than to leave them in the dust. So when my father died of... mysterious circumstances, I made my own cadet branch. Just make all these people found their own cadet branches and give far away manors to quarreling relatives! You'll watch the animosity fade away before you can say inbreeding!"

[Fallout 2] it's getting hard to distinguish between House Bluemont-Kettering-Wilmsley and House Bluemont-Kettler-Wilmington

[Option 3] "ENOUGH!" shouts the usually-quiet family councilor hired for this meeting, rubbing their temples. "This family is more dysfunctional than my bowels after San Vitenzian food. I haven't needed to bring out therapy this extreme in my entire career! There'll be trust exercises, bonding exercises, sincere conversations, the works. After I'm through with you @@NAME@@ will be running smoother than my bowels on a normal day. Of course, such extreme treatment comes at a cost..."

[Fallout 3] being a royal therapist is more lucrative than being an actual monarch

[Option 4 validity] Invalid for nations with high complacency.

[Option 4] A brick flies through the window and breaks the antique furniture, with a piece of paper attached addressed to the monarch. Instead of a letter, tied to it is a link to a website where you download a .PDF of what a letter would say. Once it's downloaded, the following appears on the screen: "Don't think the commonfolk haven't heard of your family's troubles, the underground tabloid reporters hiding in your home have made sure we know. What kind of ruler can't control their own family in a government system based on family? An inadequate one, that's who. Let the ruler of our country be drawn by a random lot; any random person could do better than you!"

[Fallout 4] most government communiques are now given by bricks

[Millenhaal]

[Desc] Any good monarch knows that the royal family is the strength of their country; the face of all that it stands for. So you wonder how @@NAME@@'s monarchy is supposed to function smoothly now that everyone in the family hates each other. Your uncle's private garden has been covered in toilet paper strewn about by your sister after your uncle insulted the dress she wore to the royal ball, and your mother's head has been shaven down the middle by your nephew after she denied him more time on his jPad. Most importantly, everybody has been too busy fighting each other to do their jobs. Enough has become enough, and so you sit down with your relatives to work this out.

[Validity] Monarchy, doesn't have high niceness

[Option 1] "He started it!" yells your frazzled sister, daring to wear that same awful dress. "Everybody in this family is mean except me! I can't go one day in this palace without being harassed by those who are supposed to support me! Our uncle deserved exactly what he got! The only solution to this den full of braggarts is to forcefully isolate every family member from one another, then we can live in peace! Emphasis on forcefully! Except at the royal ball, of course!" She twirls around, spinning that terrible dress everywhere. You haven't heard what she said, you've been entirely focused on avoiding insulting her dress.

[Fallout 1] royal family members fear making eye contact with their spouses to avoid being arrested by the royal niceness police

[Option 2] "Nobody ever said that you people needed to live together..." says one of your more distant relatives who founded his own branch pf the dynasty 40 years ago, and is now the Duke of the Southwest Hills. "I hated my siblings, they were cruel and I wanted nothing more than to leave them in the dust. So when my father died of... mysterious circumstances, I built my own manor, purchased a fief, and made my own cadet branch. Just make all these people found their own cadet branches and distribute pockets of land to quarreling relatives! You'll watch the animosity fade away before you can say inbreeding!"

[Fallout 2] it's getting hard to distinguish between House Bluemont-Kettering-Wilmsley and House Bluemont-Kettler-Wilmington

[Option 3] "ENOUGH!" shouts the usually-quiet family councilor you hired for this meeting, rubbing their temples. "This family is more dysfunctional than my bowels after San Vitenzian food. I haven't needed to bring out therapy this extreme in my entire career! There'll be trust exercises, bonding exercises, sincere conversations, the works. After I'm through with you @@NAME@@ will be running smoother than my bowels on a normal day. Of course, such extreme treatment comes at a cost..."

[Fallout 3] being a monarch's therapist is more lucrative than being an actual monarch

[Option 4 validity] Invalid for nations with high complacency.

[Option 4] A brick flies through your window and breaks your antique furniture. Instead of a letter, tied to it is a link to a website where you download a .PDF of what a letter would say. You download it, and read the following: "Don't think the commonfolk haven't heard of your family's troubles, the underground tabloid reporters hiding in your home have made sure we know. What kind of ruler can't control their own family in a government system based on family? An inadequate one, that's who. Let the ruler of our country be drawn by a random lot; any random person could do better than you!"

[Fallout 4] most government communiques are now given by bricks

[New Anarchisticstan]

Your description has a very nice writing style to it. How many issues do you have on the pool for goodness sake

[Urine Town]

I love the overview for this issue. Your prerequisite requirements also finally apply to the issue for once. My main, ahem, issue, with this draft is the fact that it is also 14 lines long. I feel like you could omit either the “everybody has been too busy fighting each other to do their jobs” line or the “ @@NAME@@'s monarchy is supposed to function smoothly now that everyone in the family hates each other.” line (not both), just for it to feel less painstakingly long to read

I know it’s silly but some of us have the attention span of a goldfish

[Verdant Haven]

- One of the challenges that always strikes issues about monarchy is that we can't assume Leader is the monarch. It may be like the British monarchy, where Leader represents a prime minister and the monarchy is avowedly neutral (for example), or it may be more like Brunei where there is an absolute monarch operating with functionally permanent martial law under his control. There's also no saying that the family has any role whatsoever outside of the monarch themself.

- Assuming the above is handled, this runs into the issue of player autonomy in several places. Make sure not to tell the player what they think or feel about important topics. People might hate the sister's dress, but we can't tell Leader that they do. Leader is a beacon of confidence, so we can't necessarily say that they wonder how they're supposed to function, or that "enough is enough" and they've decided to sit down with their relatives. That is all player choice. Same for hiring a counselor, same for some other things

- Saying that "everyone in the family hates each other" doesn't mesh with myriad other issues where there are a mix of loving and troublesome relationships. One could say that there are several ongoing feuds interrupting things, but "everybody" is an absolute statement.

- We can't assume things about how long a given situation has been ongoing. Sure, the monarchy might have existed for 40 years or more, but it might also be newly installed. We also can have socialist monarchies, where people might raise an eyebrow and ideas like the purchase of an entire fief.

The idea here is intriguing, but there is a *lot* of bobbing and weaving that will need to be done to dance around the myriad validity and autonomy challenges that could disrupt things. Fun!

[Australian rePublic]

Why would they make their fighting known to the public

[Millenhaal]

I've finagled the wording a lot, what do y'all think now?

[Verdant Haven]

I apologize in advance that a bunch of this is gonna sound really nit-picky. I'm going to try to help navigate the massively difficult series of validities, potential scenarios, and autonomies that I see potentially throwing wrenches in this. It is *really* hard to write in-depth monarchy issues.

- The royal family may or may not represent strength/be the face of the country. Some might consider it that, but it's probably too much to just say that it is.

- "Nobles" (feudalism policy) are different from "Royals" (monarchy policy), and either one can exist with or without the other.

- A monarchy might be absolute (in which case it's definitely leader) or non-absolute (in which case it might or might not be leader). Both can exist with or without elections, and in either capitalism or socialism. They can exist in nations with sortition, as well as in nations with devolution. Any possible combination of all of the above can also exist with absolute (gender blind) primogeniture or with gender-preference primogeniture, and if it's the latter we have no present way to determine what that gender preference is.

- I would avoid assuming cadet branches have been previously formed, or that it was necessarily a male to male transition, because that implies a fair amount about the history of the monarchy and of the family, which may specifically be Leader's family. I'm not 100% clear on how forming a cadet branch is actually supposed to separate people out here. Providing distant appanages to get people away from each other is reasonable though, and would carry a similar implication.

- Given the potential for this to be Leader's immediate family, I would suggest not listing specific dynastic names for those in power.

- Last one has a lot of challenges. The government system isn't necessarily based on the royal family in any way – the monarchy may or may not have a hand in governing. The monarch may or may not be the nation's ruler. Also very important, the ruler of the nation (Leader, whether monarch or not), can not under any circumstance cede government control to a random person, or anybody else, as part of an issue. That would mean the player is no longer in control!

Eek!